


Carnivals epiphany

by cutebutpsyco



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Italy, Out of Character, Set in Milan, VERY likely, student!Myrcella
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 17:59:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13723041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutebutpsyco/pseuds/cutebutpsyco
Summary: Myrcella had never been a smoker, not before Trystane and Italy but the guy ruined to her lot of things of hersIn which Myrcella has a terrible day but discovers something about herself too.---Probably out of character because it's mostly personal but it's also the first fanfiction I ever finished so I hope you can enjoy it!All the places mentioned are real places in Milan as well as the paintings in the Brera Gallery.





	Carnivals epiphany

Myrcella had never been a smoker, not before Trystane and Italy but the guy ruined to her lot of things of hers: her lugs, Ed Sheeran, her liver, very probably, the Sforza’s castle, art, her brain. She lights her third Marlboro in ten minutes, keeping the first drag between her lips even if it’s the bitterest while she enters the mess of the Carnivals Luna Park. She used to loathe the mess too. She would have never chosen that place over the museums inside the castle, once. Now she’s smoking in the Sempione Park trying to keep her tears. She doesn’t even know where she’s going, and it doesn’t matter at all. Neither she matters the fame of the park in the first place.  
She passes by the Arena looking at her back just to be sure the guy she saw take a piss in one of the godforsaken paths she took isn’t following her. She doesn’t even spend a thought about Napoleon ordering the construction of the Arena, back in the times. She would, on another day. But not today. Another Ed Sheeran’s song plays in the shuffle but that’s too good to be skipped and, most important, it speaks about a broken heart so it’s good. Somehow, that path she took brought her back to the castle proximity and Filarete’s tower is in front of her. She loves Milan and its history. And with her Michael Kors’s bag and definitely rich clothes she knows she has a target on her back and it’s not safe going around by herself in some of the most loneliness paths, far from the people. Not that this matter. She just wants to get wasted but it’s too early for pubs and, despite knowing the city, she has no idea where to buy weed. She doesn’t know the park, though. And that’s fine enough.  
The one around her made of children in Disney’s clothes and teenagers waiting to have their adrenaline dose isn't the kind of mess she would have chosen. It makes her feel miserable. She used to love it, once. That was enough to make her happy, once, not back in the UK, just yesterday. Her hands shake when she enters the castle, angry with herself. It’s messy also there, like if people are trying to rip away the history of the place with their cowboys' clothes and fake guns. It’s all so wrong, all so fake, all so loud and all so good. Myrcella walks behind the crowd of people who are gaining the exit. She throws her best Lannister's stare at one of the guys trying to sell her a selfie stick. The song which is playing on her mobile interrupts and she see her mother’s name on it. “You fault, Myrc, you thought about her.” She thinks, picking up. A moment later, she has no idea of what Cersei had told to her.  
Or how she replied either; she lights another cigarette and everything is less awful. Her mother is in London anyway. Screwing Uncle Jaime if voices are founded. And she doesn’t care at all. When did she become like this? She doesn’t know and, breaking news, she cares even less.  
She reaches the Duomo and there there’s the kind of mess she was seeking for, probably. She had never liked Carnivals but it’s a huge party in Italy so everyone looks like have to stay outside, crowding the public places, and people sell beer in the streets and that’s good too. Her Louboutin's are slippering on shaving foam (why the hell there is shaving foam on the pavement?) and are probably ruined by now and about her shoes, she cares. Priorities, she supposes. A child with an Ironman costume runs in front of her with some strange spray in his hands but a Cersei Lannister’s worthy daughter stare is enough to make him run back from wherever he cames from; probably the same place where she learnt how to cast that glance. Uncle Tyrion once told her she had her mother’s beauty and nothing of her temper. How can a man who’s always right about everything be so wrong about her? She has to thanks Trystane for that. Again.  
She is drinking her second beer and has lost the count of the cigarettes she smoked when she reaches Via Montenapoleone. There’s a different kind of mess there but it smells like home and can work as well. Her Coco Mademoiselle has probably drowned in the smell of booze and smoke but she’s not in the compulsive shopping mood anyway. She just wanted to be alone in a crowd. And when she starts to walk in the direction of the Scala she knows where her feet are bringing her: to Brera. Her safe place.  
How long has passed since the last time she’d been there? Since Trystane. And she knows she had been stupid to let him take art from her. And she hates herself for having let him. The only thing she genuinely loved. She almost runs, as fast as heels let her, when she sees the building, like a promised land, at the end of the road. She doesn’t need cigarettes, she doesn’t need alcohol to get wasted. She needs paintings. She needs art and knowledge. She needs Raffaello Sanzio’s perfection, and golden leaf backgrounds even if she never liked them. She needs Caravaggio’s lights and shadows. She needs the representation of a God she doesn’t believe in. And, for once in a long time, she decides not to skip the first rooms, the XIV century ones.  
There’s something, in the ruined tables, in the unrealistic figures, in the first tries to recreate a perspective that makes her remember her why she choose art history at the university and why she is in Italy. She can’t give a name to this something but she doesn’t care and, for once today, in a good way.  
She walks room after room, taking pictures of the paintings even if she has hundreds by now, recognizing subjects and painters, but still awed in front of them, as a child who watches at something beautiful for the first time and tries to see the same beauty in the real life. She knows it doesn’t exist, not anymore if it ever did, but she lets the magic flow in her, bring her somewhere else. It doesn’t erase the pain, the sadness, the reason why she wanted to not being at home because she’s not a little girl anymore, but it helps. And when she reaches her favourite room and watches at her favourite painting, Lo Sposalizio della Vergine, she almost doesn’t realize she’s crying, trying to push tears back. She can blame it on Stendhal syndrome when a man approaches her, asking if everything is okay, but she knows the truth. She is just a stupid girl, crying for the most stupid reason in the world and blaming it on his former boyfriend when it’s all her fault. She blames him for having let him take her what used to make her happy when they started dating but the truth is that she is the one incapable of having friends, she’s the one who values her solitude more, she is the one who has trusting problems and even if it’s true that Trystane ruined her, ripped her away from everything she loved because he said it wasn’t cool, she is the one who couldn’t realize all her supposed to be friends were using her, searching for her only when they need help.  
She clears the tears and watches again, this time for real, at the painting. There is a reason why she loves it so much, why, when she was five, asked Uncle Jaime to buy it for her, as a birthday present and broke in tears when she unwrapped the most beautiful Barbie’s castle, the one all her classmates wanted. That painting, the perfect octagonal ancient-like temple in the background, the shining colours, always made her feel like there were no worries in the world like she could control everything and while she knows she can’t do this, she can at least be the person she wants to. And she wants to be herself, with all her flaws and problems, with her nerdish passions, her being the person incapable of finish anything, with her nihilism and her need to help the others forgetting about herself, with her stubbornness in never letting people help her, with her harsh kindness and her wish to be more similar to her mother despite everything. With her well-hidden anxiety and her trust problems too. Because she is all these things.  
When she exits Brera palace, the sun has settled down but nothing has ever appeared so shiny to her. She smiles, search for the cigarettes pack in her bag and throws it in the closest garbage bin. Probably nobody would care but she won’t let anybody decides for her anymore. She mirrors on her mobile phone screen; she has mascara all over her cheeks and she looks younger than her age but the girl smiling at her is happy. She scrolls her photos finding the one she was looking for: Trystane and her, in one of the famous discos of Milan, her golden hair shining in the green and red lights, a fake smile plastered on her face. He looked happy but you shouldn’t love someone out of kindness or because your father needs a business alliance with the other's family and she knows she ended up with Trystane for both of the reasons.  
And being alone hurts and scares, but it’s better than pretending. She laughs, alone, in the middle of the street, like a fool, like a crazy girl. And yes, probably she is because she learnt more of herself simply staring at a painting than she ever did living her life but she doesn’t care at all.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you liked it. Kudos and comments are appreciated (=


End file.
